Chapter 298: Occupying the Kingdom of Larantuka (please vote!)
The Dutch’s quick compromise and the signing of the Batavia Contract made Arthur and the Australasian government breathe a sigh of relief.
Of course, this does not mean that Arthur will be afraid of the Dutch government. The reason for this relief is that the Australasian army will also be able to lose fewer troops.
Although the population of Australasia is about to exceed 10 million, many of them are immigrants who have only arrived in the past two years.
These immigrants also needed a long period of education and influence to develop a strong sense of national identity and national pride in Australasia.
Therefore, every time Australasia recruits soldiers, there will also be a relatively rigid requirement, which is to live in Australasia for three years.
Of course, this is only a requirement of the ordinary army. If it is Arthur's trusted army Guards Division, the requirement is to live in Australasia for at least five years.
Such requirements can be very effective in screening soldiers who have a sense of identity with the country.
After all, Arthur was confident that under the influence of various Australasian policies and propaganda, few people would not have any sense of identification with this country after living in Australasia for five years.
After the treaty was signed, the occupation of these Dutch-ceded territories became the current top priority of the Australasian government.
Although most of the lands ceded by the Kingdom of the Netherlands were relatively small islands, they also included the only Catholic country in the Dutch East Indies, the Kingdom of Larantuka.
This country still has a certain military strength, and the Dutch's previous interference in the Kingdom of Larantuka was insufficient, resulting in this country having considerable autonomy and military power.
For Arthur, this hidden danger must be removed. What's more, the force behind the attack on Charles Venn was the Kingdom of Larantuka. Although it may not have been the intention of the government of this country, who made the plotter a person from Larantuka?
On September 1, 1911, the Australasian government officially issued an announcement announcing the expansion of Australian Timor to the entire Timor Island, and the formation of all newly acquired territories except Timor Island into a new state. Level administrative region, that is, royal territory.
After this announcement was issued to the outside world, the Ministry of National Defense also officially began action.
The Ministry of National Defense mobilized the First and Second Divisions, a total of more than 30,000 troops, to occupy and temporarily militarize the newly acquired territory under the escort of the fleet.
Among them, the important target of the army is the Kingdom of Larantuca on Flores Island, which is also the only country in all the archipelago that has military power.
Arthur doesn't want other countries to exist in the area he rules, not to mention that this country currently behaves like an out-and-out bastard.
The best outcome for the Kingdom of Larantuka is to be annexed by Australasia and become part of the royal territory.
If the Larantuka people resisted, Arthur would not mind letting them experience the fate of the indigenous people, even if they were descendants of the Portuguese and local indigenous people.
After all, the Portuguese were beaten, would Arthur still care about the descendants left by the Portuguese?
On September 2, the 1st Division and the 2nd Division officially started taking action. They will go to Flores Island together. After first capturing and occupying the Kingdom of Larantuca, they will then use Flores Island as the dividing line to go to respectively. areas to the west and east.
The First Division and the Second Division are also very excited about such an action. After all, Australasia has a military merit system. In addition to the money rewarded by military merit, if you accumulate more, you can even obtain a title.
Although the military merit required for a title is huge, as the saying goes, a soldier who does not want to be a general is not a good soldier, and a soldier who does not want to become a noble through military merit is not a good soldier either.
People still have to have dreams, what if they come true?
With this idea, the Australasian army has a strong desire to fight, and is even completely unafraid of death.
After all, the Australasian military pension system does exist, and if they die, their families may be better off.
This also gives most soldiers no worries. After all, in addition to having a bite of food for themselves, making their families live a better life is what most people pursue.
On September 3, after recuperating their strength, the 1st and 2nd Divisions arrived at Luten, a city in the southern part of Flores.
The defense power of the Kingdom of Larantuka was ineffective against the first and second divisions. They did not even have the strength to resist the rule of the Dutch, let alone the Australasians, who were more powerful than the Dutch.
Thousands of Larantuka troops were like cattle and sheep being slaughtered in front of the first and second divisions, which cost hundreds of thousands of bullets.
Even because the fire suppression of the first and second divisions was too strong, the few musketeers in the Kingdom of Larantuka could not use it at all. This also allowed the Australasian soldiers to shoot more freely, with sufficient ammunition. The time can be targeted, and the hit rate is even higher.
On the afternoon of September 3, the overwhelming Australasian army easily arrived at the capital of the Kingdom of Larantuka, a small city named Yingde.
The war continues to this day, and what delays the Australasian army's attack is actually the size of Flores.
Although this is a small city for Australasia, it is also a large island with a length of 380 kilometers and a width of more than 70 kilometers, with a total area of more than 14,000 square kilometers. The capture of the capital of the Kingdom of Larantuka, like the previous small city of Luten, took almost no effort.
Even before night falls, the Australasian army is already stationed in the capital of the Kingdom of Larantuka and is already beginning to maintain order in this small kingdom.
The army's method of maintaining order is very simple, that is, it adopts militarized management, distributes food uniformly, and directly shoots those who do not obey orders.
Anyway, these indigenous people are not Australasians and will not be recognized by the Australasian government.
This also represents the fact that as long as it is not obvious, the life and death of these natives are completely controlled by these soldiers.
Of course, before militarized management, it is still necessary to directly eliminate the senior officials and royal family of the Larantuka Kingdom.
Keeping them here will affect the order of the Larantuka Kingdom. After all, who knows if there will be people who are die-hard loyal to the royal family.
As for the other indigenous residents in the city, the army was not worried about their resistance at all. Anyway, if there is any resistance, they will be executed on the spot. Their army has no room for resistance, and some civilians are naturally less likely to have an impact on the army.
After resting for a day on Flores Island, on the morning of September 4, the First Division and the Second Division left a total of nearly 3,000 troops to garrison the island.
The remaining armies set off separately, preparing to capture a large number of islands and archipelagos in the west and east.
The 1st Division is responsible for Lombok, Sumbawa and Sumba Islands in the west, and the 2nd Division is responsible for the Alo Islands, Southwest Islands, Southeast Islands, Kai Islands and Aru Islands in the east.
Taken together, most of the western areas of Flores are relatively large islands, while the eastern areas are all archipelagos composed of small islands, and the span is very large.
In fact, not only this area, but also numerous islands of various sizes throughout the Dutch East Indies, which greatly affected the Dutch East Indies colonial government's rule over this area.
If you want to properly rule this area, in addition to having hundreds of thousands of powerful troops, you must also have a particularly powerful navy.
But the fact is that the Dutch East Indies Colony, including all the indigenous divisions, had only a little over 100,000 soldiers in total.
Although it seems that there are a lot of 100,000 people, most of them are indigenous divisions composed entirely of indigenous people. They usually suppress the rebellion of those indigenous people, but on the battlefield with other powerful countries, they can only be used as cannon fodder.
In terms of navy, the Netherlands' naval strength is considered second-rate among many small and medium-sized countries in Europe. But the naval strength of the Dutch East Indies is really not on the table.
The largest warship currently in the Dutch East Indies is only a medium-sized warship of more than 6,000 tons. On the basis of the absence of battleships, it is also destined that the navy of the Dutch East Indies can only suppress internally and cannot fight externally.
This is why the Netherlands quickly gave in to Australasia. After all, he knows his own affairs. The military power of the Dutch East Indies cannot last long. Even if the attitude is firmer, it will only be occupied by Australasia later.
Instead of taking a tough stance and waiting for the valuable land of the Dutch East Indies to be fully occupied by Australasia, we should give in and strive to save more land and reduce the government's losses.
The complex geographical environment of the Dutch East Indies actually meant that the controllers of this land were not able to manage this land well.
Take a country established on this land in later generations as an example. Because there are many islands and diverse ethnic groups in the country, even in later generations, domestic ethnic conflicts and conflicts are very frequent.
However, for Australasia, the newly acquired land and its indigenous population of more than one million were very useful.
Whether they are used as cannon fodder in future wars to enhance their presence and role in the war, or they are used as free labor to support various constructions of the country, they are very useful.
Anyway, all kinds of construction require a lot of labor, and when it comes to indigenous people, Australasia really doesn't reject anyone.
Of course, Arthur was not worried about the impact these indigenous people would have on the order of Australasia in peacetime in the future.
In Arthur's plan, these indigenous people were not considered at all in Australasia.
This also means that in addition to sacrificing their lives for the development of Australasia, their only option is to become cannon fodder and enhance Australia's presence at the international level.
Anyway, Australasia will eventually participate in the future World War I. If we want to gain enough voice after the First World War, we must make certain sacrifices and contributions during the war.
Letting these indigenous people pay is better than asking Australasians to pay! Judging from the reproduction rate of these natives, Arthur would not feel bad at all if hundreds of thousands died.
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(End of chapter)